Interesting segment on NPR this morning on an Oakland think tank, The Breakthrough Institute, that is aiming to make clean energy as cheap as possible through government-supported innovation, rather than making carbon expensive through regulation.

Michael Shellenberger, one of the Institute’s founders, explains his position to a group of new summer interns:

“When was the last time human beings modernized our energy sources by making older power sources more expensive?” he asks the interns. “And, of course, by now you probably know that the answer is never.”

Personal computers didn’t take off because there was a tax on typewriters, he says. And the Internet didn’t sprout up because the government made telegraphs more expensive.

“So is there a better way to do this? Well, we think that there is. It’s very simple: It’s that we need to make clean energy cheap worldwide.” […]

Shellenberger and [co-founder Ted] Nordhaus argue that the best way to develop those clean technologies is to increase federal energy research tenfold, and to create a project akin to the Apollo mission to the moon. But a massive increase in federal energy research spending is not a popular idea at the moment.

“There’s this idea that the government shouldn’t be involved in technology, the government shouldn’t be picking winners and losers,” Shellenberger says. “Which is sort of a funny thing to say. It’s kind of like, well, why not? And when hasn’t the United States government been involved in picking technology winners and losers?”

He points to the computer industry as just one example of something that came into being because of deliberate federal investments.

We’re wising up to green-washing, and we’re doing it wisely. Not every ad featuring glossy images of the verdant globe is greeted with full-on skepticism.  Put another way, we may be dumb, but we’re not so dumb that we buy GM’s “gas-friendly to gas-free” ad campaign.

Consumers are skeptical about a wave of green advertising even as the overall value of that market is exploding, according to results of market research issued today by Havas Media, a unit of Havas, a global marketing company based in Paris.

The study, Sustainable Futures ‘09, finds that many companies are unable to get their messages through to consumers because some marketing campaigns are seen as little more than opportunism on the part of big business.

“This lack of connection between what companies are doing and how they are perceived, threatens to weaken relationships between brands and consumers,” Havas warned.

The firm found that 64 percent of respondents viewed sustainability campaigns as a little more than a “marketing tool.” That result, said Havas, was particularly problematic because consumers continued to show strong interest in buying goods and services from responsible sources.

“It is not a case of consumers being fickle, but rather a case of businesses being perceived as unauthentic,” said Havas, which noted that companies in sectors like food, retail and telecommunications had been more successful so far than companies in the oil and automotive sectors at using messages pegged to sustainability.

They’ll spend the first 100 days undoing all the damage (and the first 1,000 days wouldn’t be enough).

Two weeks ago the National Association of Insurance Commissioners ruled insurance companies must now submit annual “climate-risk” reports.

“The officials acted after concluding that climate change threatens insurers in two ways. It increases the risk of extreme weather events such as floods and wildfires, which would boost claims. And it is prompting governments to cap industrial carbon emissions that contribute to global warming — a move threatens the profits of companies such as coal-fired utilities in which insurers commonly invest.”

This is just more evidence of the immediate need to solve the climate crisis, not only because of its effect on the planet, but on business as well.

At least nine car companies worldwide say that by 2013 they will offer plug-in vehicles that use electric motors as their primary means of propulsion, according to Plug-in America, an activist group. Some will be all-electric drive vehicles (EV). Most will be plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) that use small gasoline engines as a backup.

GM and Chrysler both say they will sell a plug-in car in 2010. Ford will sell a battery-powered commercial van next year, a small battery-powered EV car the year after, and a PHEV competitor to GM’s Volt by 2012. Toyota says it will sell a plug-in-hybrid Prius to companies late this year, but hasn’t said when ordinary consumers will be able to buy one. So far, despite its financial woes, GM seems to hold the plug-in lead, [David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research] says.

marc:

At a time when most airlines are skimping on basics like food and pillows, one carrier is going in a different direction. Rather than just offer peanuts or movies for purchase, Virgin America is selling environmentally conscious passengers the chance to fly guilt free. Virgin has become the first domestic airline to offer carbon credits in-flight.